The Associated Students Women’s Center on campus has always been a great resource for those needing support and resources.
MJ Parafina, the current Women’s Center Director, took a moment to chat with HerCampus over zoom this past week about the Center’s many benefits to campus since its start in 1975, as well as an event they have coming up on Monday, October 28th, called “WC Presents – What Is Love?”, which is meant to be a chance to discuss the importance of healthy relationships and what those look like, with the help of guest speakers, resources, workshops, and otherwise.Â
The event takes place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Richard Oakes Multicultural Center, and the likes of San Francisco Women Against Rape, as well as Black Women Revolt have been invited to participate, as “they have been the ones that did the presentations in the past,” Parafina says, adding, “I think that is super engaging, and a very insightful conversation – the workshops are great as well.”
In addition to this event, the Women’s Center does also have annual conferences in the Spring. Parafina says that planning is in the works and will be put more in focus after the What Is Love event has concluded, but theme is set to be Women at Work – “we’re hoping to have a panel of different women in different fields of work to talk about what got them interested in their positions/fields, and to give any advice for anyone going into those careers. In the past we’ve done the conference as a one day event except that it was several hours long, and it was on a Saturday. We’ve learned from the past couple of conferences and we’re switching the format to where our workshops, which usually would be on the same day as the conference, would be spread out throughout the week and then the conference panel would be on a Friday instead of a Saturday. I know it’s hard to get students to come on a Saturday,” Parafina adds, referencing her own status and beginning as a commuter student – which, she mentions, is the reason why she got involved with the Women’s Center in the first place.
“On campus I felt like I didn’t have a place to go and hang out, and since [my best friend] started working at the Women’s Center, I started coming here, since she was here all the time, and then they convinced me to apply to the internship program, which I did for two semesters,” she says. Through there, MJ was able to gain both experience and community at the Women’s Center, and states the significance that it is a wonderful place to move up the ranks, if one should want to do so.
What is also wonderful about the Women’s Center as well, is that it is always stressed that though it began as a safe space to breastfeed on campus, it has grown into something much bigger, and it is meant to include not just women, but all students who need the resources, or even a friendly ear. MJ mentions that the office, which is quite spacious, often hosts a number of drop-ins, and that in addition to having personally implemented a stock of Plan B to hand out to students, they are also working on having a sectioned off area in the office directly as a designated “lactation room”, but in the meantime, they are directing those who need that space to the designated lactation rooms already in place on campus.
The Women’s Center does incredible work, and it is wonderful to see how they keep evolving.